Audio Engineers Built a Shield To Deflect Police Sound Cannons (vice.com) 257
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Over the past two weeks, cops have been deploying every tool at their disposal to suppress worldwide protests and riots over the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and other Black citizens killed by police. Since the protests began, demonstrators in multiple cities have reported spotting LRADs, or Long-Range Acoustic Devices, sonic weapons that blast sound waves at crowds over large distances and can cause permanent hearing loss. In response, two audio engineers from New York City have designed and built a shield which they say can block and even partially reflect these harmful sonic blasts back at the police. The shield's designers, Dave Rife and Gabe Liberti, were inspired to build the device after marching in the protests in New York City and hearing about LRAD sightings at demonstrations across the U.S.
"It's definitely been on our mind a lot how we've been seeing police instigating violence, and we've heard rumblings here and there about LRADs being spotted in NYC," said Rife, the shield's co-designer, who has previously worked in the architecture industry as an expert in acoustics. "We met on Sunday with the aim of building something that resembles a protest sign but can block a fair amount of sound energy. The idea is there could be a few of these in a car, driven to the location where someone has seen an LRAD, and then carried by hand from there." Rife and Liberti designed their shield to reflect audible sound waves that are condensed and carried via ultrasonic frequencies, and have tested it against a smaller and less powerful version of the LRAD that they built in their studio. It's made from a pine batten structure filled with recycled denim insulation, and covered by a half inch of clear acrylic on both sides, enabling the user to see ahead through a small window. According to a detailed teardown of the LRAD 300X posted by another audio technician, the LRADs produced by Genasys, the company that pioneered the devices, do not use an ultrasonic beam to project sound. However, Rife and Liberti say their design would still be effective against these hyper-directional blasts.
"It's definitely been on our mind a lot how we've been seeing police instigating violence, and we've heard rumblings here and there about LRADs being spotted in NYC," said Rife, the shield's co-designer, who has previously worked in the architecture industry as an expert in acoustics. "We met on Sunday with the aim of building something that resembles a protest sign but can block a fair amount of sound energy. The idea is there could be a few of these in a car, driven to the location where someone has seen an LRAD, and then carried by hand from there." Rife and Liberti designed their shield to reflect audible sound waves that are condensed and carried via ultrasonic frequencies, and have tested it against a smaller and less powerful version of the LRAD that they built in their studio. It's made from a pine batten structure filled with recycled denim insulation, and covered by a half inch of clear acrylic on both sides, enabling the user to see ahead through a small window. According to a detailed teardown of the LRAD 300X posted by another audio technician, the LRADs produced by Genasys, the company that pioneered the devices, do not use an ultrasonic beam to project sound. However, Rife and Liberti say their design would still be effective against these hyper-directional blasts.
50 lb shield too heavy & won't attenuate much (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: 50 lb shield too heavy & won't attenuate m (Score:4, Funny)
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Yep, earplugs seem like a more practical and effective solution all around. Maybe wear earplugs and shooting headphones over them.
What I really worry about is the idea that someone somewhere is going to use a laser weapon at one of these events and blind a crowd full of people. If you did it in a sports stadium you could potentially blind 50,000 people.
Re: 50 lb shield too heavy & won't attenuate m (Score:3)
Christ did you even think about that before you wrote? You don't have to spread out the beam to the point where it's ineffectual, any more than you would have to split a machinegun bullet into 500 pieces to shoot at a crowd. You just swing the thing around as you keep firing.
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One important aspect of a laser is that the beam is concentrated.
That's why they mount a spinning mirror or prism in front of the emitter- the beam swings around and paints everyone in a split second.
One moment you're fine, the next you're blinded for life.
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If the cops see these deployed they might thing twice about risking their own hearing though. Just the deterrent factor is valuable.
33dB might not be enough anyway, the marketing material claims these things can emit 136db and anything over 80db is into hearing damage territory, so probably best to use both.
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What I'd like to see (Score:3)
is a large, light-weight, shallow parabolic reflector that could return enough acoustic energy to the cops to at least make them uncomfortable.
Re:What I'd like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
shield material test video (Score:3, Informative)
we already have this (Score:2)
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Police surpressing worldwide protests? (Score:5, Insightful)
No they haven't. It seems the only place police are suppressing protests are in the USA. The rest of the world seems to be protesting without issue and police presence there does little more than keep the peace. But then the rest of the world doesn't have a constitutional right to assembly protecting us ... wait that makes no sense.
Land of the free my arse.
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I didn't see them burning down businesses in Europe. What I did see was a lot of head-scratching about why people thousands of miles away are protesting about American domestic issues, and the sad answer was that the Americanization of Europe has gotten into too many people's heads, and they simply can't understand that they're not Americans themselves. It doesn't matter to them. They have consumed so much American media that deep down they think live in America. When you've got potential COVID-19 supersp [thelocal.no]
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I think the headscratching is because a lot of us white Europeans are so utterly privileged we can't even comprehend the scale of it, nor the harm it's done to all the others we've lauded over for centuries.
We have all the same race issues the Americans do - except our police have a far, far better record of acting impartially and fairly when faced with a mass protest. I wouldn't go as far as to say our police aren't racist, but even there, they have a better record than the US.
Hence, thousands and thousand
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constitutional right to assembly
The full clause is or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances
Non lethal force (Score:2)
It always baffles me when people attack government means of less then lethal options such sonic, water cannons, tear gas, mace, rubber bullets, tasers and so on. These have been under system attack by radicals for decades who want to remove these as options. It is as if people think that if they were to somehow get rid of all the less then lethal options that governments would somehow no longer have the ability to forcibly disperse them.
It does not matter what the technology is, all less then lethal technol
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You're suggesting that you are baffled by things so surely the problem must be with those things. If you have cops who have a very low threshold for pulling guns and for firing guns and you give them tasers, they will feel free do use them for everything they can imagine. Cops need to start with some elementary education which cops in other countries get: they are not in Iraq. They should respect the citizens and not treat them as the enemy. They should not disperse crowds when there are demonstrations. The
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Even in Iraq the presumption that a civilian is the enemy and deserving of being treated as such is wrong, both morally and according to the UCMJ.
Unintended consequence (Score:2)
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Where'd you get that? And who is this "They" you are talking about.
So ... (Score:2)
... they should go back to firehoses and rubber bullets? Is that better?
See, if you 'defeat' (and TBH this sounds like something that might work in a lab only) various non-lethal means that the the police have to control riots, it's not like the authorities are going to shrug and say "well I guess we can't control them, we should just go home and let them burn the neighborhood!".
No, it's going to be back to truncheons, rubber bullets, and CS. And then more serious methods.
It's a dilemma: non lethal method
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I'll accept a solution that doesn't do permanent damage. Water cannons are the only one on that list. The police has no business using lethal force in any situation, leave that to the military. At most they should be able to use force to incapacitate people temporarily.
Exceptions I suppose for backwater countries where an arms race is allowed between the populace and the police forces.
Only good communist is a dead one (Score:2)
I wouldn't go roleplaying in the street. This isn't harry potter.
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Re:The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:5, Insightful)
When the nonlethal force doesn't work they step it up to lethal force.
Here is a video of cops firing rubber bullets [youtube.com] at people who were neither rioting nor protesting. They were just standing on their front porch, when the police were given the order to "light em' up".
Rubber bullets can maim, blind, and even kill.
So I agree, when mobs of cops want to go into a neighborhood and make unprovoked attacks on peaceful civilians, a sonic cannon would be an improvement over how they are currently doing it.
The cops seem to be aiming for folks heads too (Score:2)
Re:The cops seem to be aiming for folks heads too (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-lethal force should be used as an alternative to lethal force.
It should not be used as an alternative to having a conversation.
Instead of shooting at the people on their porch, why didn't they just walk over and talk to them? Or, even better, just leave them alone, since they were doing nothing illegal.
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Because that would take work and knowing how to use a brain.
Talk to people, ask them nicely, and give them a reason why they like to see them comply. Nah, that will never work! There wouldn't be an excuse to shoot at people who don't shoot back! /s
Re:The cops seem to be aiming for folks heads too (Score:4, Informative)
"Non-lethal force" is a misnomer, it's actually just less lethal force. Rubber bullets are not non-lethal, they can still kill you, just with lower probability.
Same with tasers, tear gas, batons, riot shields etc.
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Non-lethal force should be used as an alternative to lethal force.
It should not be used as an alternative to having a conversation
When the Taser was introduced, it quickly became apparent that cops used it A LOT instead of just conversation. They really don't want to kill anyone (I firmly believe 99.9% of cops are good people). But non-lethal force is much easier deploy as a first line.
Re:The cops seem to be aiming for folks heads too (Score:5, Insightful)
It appears they were violating curfew
They were not. The curfew only applied to public areas. It was not illegal for them to be on their own property.
disobeyed repeated orders
The didn't understand that the cops were yelling at them since they had done nothing wrong.
Even if they were violating the curfew (they weren't), that in no way whatsoever justifies the police opening fire.
It seems likely the police were on their way to confront rioters.
And just decided to shoot at people along the way.
Re:The cops seem to be aiming for folks heads too (Score:4, Informative)
To re-iterate my other reply above, at the time of the incident, the FAQ, under the section "Can I be outside my house..." Simply said "yes". The part about following "lawful" orders wasn't added until that incident was filmed and posted online.
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
The FAQ was changed _after_ the shooting (Score:2)
It appears they were violating curfew
They were not. The curfew only applied to public areas. It was not illegal for them to be on their own property.
You have that wrong - it is clearly spelled out that in this circumstance they were in violation of the curfew:
Frequently Asked Questions about the Curfew
Can I be outside my house (on my property) after 10 p.m. and before 4 a.m.? [mn.gov]
Yes. You can be on your porch, yard, patio, etc., but if a law enforcement officer or other public safety official asks you to go inside, or take any other action, you must follow the instruction.
Once they disregarded the lawful order to go indoors they were in violation of curfew during a riot.
As many screenshots prove (I did make one myself) the wording of the curfew FAQ was changed _after_ the shooting to justify the police action ex post facto. They didn't follow rules the police made up on the spot.
See in the comments of
"Light Them Up!" Minnesota PD opens fire on random civilians on their porch [dailykos.com] or use google to find one of the many screenshots if you do not like that source.
I guess that has been known to any person actually interested and I find it hard to believe that you do not know this b
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you are factually wrong, an apologist for unacceptable behavior, an anonymous coward and you give unsolicited advice.
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You are utterly, profoundly ridiculous. Those cops need jail time.
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If you are defending a scene that would slide right into a film about Warsaw during WWII, you need to go home and rethink your life.
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There was nothing to discuss. Nothing had to be explained. The repeated orders were clear.
I feel they could have been given more than three seconds to comply though. And maybe made it clear who they were addressing ("you people standing on the porch") and maybe told what would happen if they didn't.
etc,. etc.
I'd also expect the curfew to only apply to people who go out in the street, not just standing on their porch. "Land of the Free", and all that...
Re:The cops seem to be aiming for folks heads too (Score:4, Informative)
Funny enough, the part you made bold wasn't in the FAQ prior to that incident being filmed. It was added the following day.
Re:The cops seem to be aiming for folks heads too (Score:5, Informative)
Checked it out. May 30th, when the incident happened, it simply said "Yes". The 31st, it was changed to what you posted above.
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
Re:The cops seem to be aiming for folks heads too (Score:5, Insightful)
but if a law enforcement officer or other public safety official asks you to go inside, or take any other action, you must follow the instruction.
You only have to follow lawful orders, not any arbitrary demands.
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Laser pointers are lethal on your planet? Tell me more!
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Nope. Soldiers have actual ROEs that make sense.
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Far too many of them were soldiers first, and four or more years of intensive training to meet resistance with overwhelming violence will override any subsequent training that they might have received.
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It would not be an improvement if cops were trained more like soldiers. It would be an improvement if they had the same amount of training like soldiers but the training should be very different.
This is the kind of training they (some of them)get: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/0... [nytimes.com]
That means that whenever a cop is anywhere near you your life is in danger. Such cops should not be allowed to walk around free, and I am not sure they can be reeducated.
This is a competent cop who joined the police in 2016: https: [newyorker.com]
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I guess you missed the part about permanent hearing loss.
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I guess you missed the part about permanent hearing loss.
What? I can't hear you.
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Re:The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I've heard, a lot of Second Amendment proponents have also touted it as a way to protect themselves against the government should the government ever go tyrannical. (I'll admit to have mocked them in the past for thinking their weapons would stand up to the US military if it came to that.) Still, it seems like those same Second Amendment proponents have been rooting for the police and cheering them on as they fire on peaceful protesters. It's almost like they don't care if the government goes tyrannical as long as the tyranny impacts "the right people" instead of impacting them.
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Rubber bullets can also rupture your testicle:
George Floyd protests: San Jose police fire rubber bullets at own bias trainer, rupture his testicle [fox23.com]
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In some states I'm pretty sure officers can order you to go inside your home if something is happening in the neighborhood.
They can certainly try anyway - and many citizens will go inside, just to make the lives of officers easier, even if they don't *have* to. I know, it's crazy.
Shooting them (with anything) for not complying isn't the right response, obviously.
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Non-Lethal is wrong. These options are considered "less than lethal" and are usually referred to as such by law enforcement.
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So they torture a little under threat of torturing a lot...
Re:The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:5, Informative)
Re: The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:4, Informative)
My real thoughts are that we are at the point of total governmental and authoritarian degeneration
Then you're in idiot. These riots pop up every decade or two, the cops and the national guard go in and sort it out, and 90% of citizens stay at home, cheer, and wait for it to be over so they can go back to living their lives. The current round of protests/countermeasures only seems bad to those who have never bother studying any history. The Detroit riots in 67 were far worse.
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Watts was worse.
Chicago in '68 was . . . probably worse.
Re: The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying your constitutional right to assembly is violently violated by the government every decade or two, but it's okay because only 10% of the population are affected and the rest of you couldn't give a shit about your rights?
It kinda sounds like you are the problem.
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Except most of these protests have been peaceful. There have been plenty of videos of peaceful protesters being hit with tear gas, rubber bullets, etc. For example, the protesters in Lafayette Square were peaceful and were an hour away from curfew when suddenly military police stormed at the crowd firing tear gas and beating protesters and media covering the protest. (All so Trump could have his photo op at the church.)
Re: The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:5, Interesting)
Vast majority of Americans support the protests:
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/l... [forbes.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]
I think people have had enough of this flaring up over and over and want it properly sorted out now. Defunding is a great way to do that, remove these kinds of weapons, de-militarize the police and instead concentrate on preventing crime.
The prison-industrial complex and racists will fight it but it seems like the majority of Americans understand the problem.
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Human rights have been worse in many places in the past.
The country I live in currently used to mass murder Jewish people (and others that didn't agree with them) some time ago, for example. Today it's much better for Jewish people of course. There's still some raging anti-semitism going on where Synagogues get assaulted, but it's certainly not as bad as it was.
The country I come from also wasn't that fond of Jewish people and many many other ethnicities.
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The sonic weapons are nonlethal force. When the nonlethal force doesn't work they step it up to lethal force.
Except, from the article:
LRADs are pitched to law enforcement as “non-lethal” tools for crowd control, and the police departments have claimed that they should not be considered weapons.
Police departments don't consider them to be weapons. They're tools.
So maybe protesters should get their own sonic "tools" and use them against the police.
Re: The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:2)
So maybe protesters should get their own sonic "tools" and use them against the police.
Go for it; it will last about 5 minutes before the police charge and take it away from you. Then they'll have a free tool to turn around on you.
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Please, don't give the rioters any ideas.
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Police departments don't consider them to be weapons. They're tools.
That's an interesting bit of the English language I'm curious about. Where does coming calling an idiot a "tool" from?
Not that I disagree with the sentence at hand, those idiots are tools.
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Yay, let the arms race begin!
Violence begets resistance. But I guess it's true, people don't learn from history and have to repeat them. Obviously the middle east is too far away from the US, you have to try that at home before you learn from it.
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Or you can not use any force at all.
The protests are around the fact the police use too aggressive force. So what do the police do to these protesters use more aggressive force.
Now this is the problem. And idiots such as yourself, don't seem to understand that. The police shouldn't be a military. non-lethal force stills injures people. I can go down the street and punch people, it is normally non-leathal. But it is still wrong.
Re: The sonic weapons are nonlethal force (Score:2)
Hard to say how it would pan out. Not all military and police would follow orders to kill their own citizens. It would be a civil war for sure.
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I'm questioning the face-hole in that thing... how does it protect the ears when it hits you square in the eye and nose?
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I'm questioning the face-hole in that thing... how does it protect the ears when it hits you square in the eye and nose?
That face hole appears to be covered in the same plexiglass style material the entire thing is covered in. Notice the reflection [vice.com]?
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Cyberears for everybody!
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Re: Strange times, eh? (Score:2)
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How would cities not immediately collapse into kleptocracies? Half of them are already so and that's with larger government around them, a press, and so on.
Do you understand the kind of people who go into power do so to line their own pockets? They use your wide-eyed naivete and rely on you projecting your fantasies onto them so they can gain your support, and thus legal power.
I even hear one of the main such kleptocrats even came up wih a cyinical name for people like you.
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What kind of brain injury do you have, Roman?
Re:Stupid. Just use a pair of ear plugs. (Score:5, Insightful)
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People are terrible at "hedonic calculus"; that is, knowing in advance what will make them happy. They have trouble even knowing what they want, and into that vacuum steps the politician with his bullshit. The gullibility of the masses is the foundation of both politics and salesmanship, and it was only a matter of time before we elected a master salesman to the highest office in the land.
Proponents of every alternative to democracy justify their systems with the undeniable fact that the public can't be tru
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Sigh. You know. that was good advice in 1964... maybe even 1972.
But it's clear by now-- with 4 HOUR waits to vote if you are not summarily disenfranchised while republican areas have no wait at all-- after 64 years of this crap-- that it's going to take more than voting to even get to a place where elections in the U.S. are free and fair elections
Of course, that's if you have your Government issued ID card- which is harder to get since they closed most the ID offices in minority areas (one is only open fr
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Well it does. Progressives have won about 8 seats in New Mexico now.
Basically- Republicans blew things so badly that now they look like lunatics and so that leaves the real race between right wing democrats and left wing progressives. And yes, there's some left wing lunatics out past them.
My main concern is that the russians successfully compromised several key republicans including Lindsey Graham.
We've *got* to start doing security clearance checks on Senators and Representatives of *both* parties. If
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I think some, and this includes radio hosts, don't really like Trump all that much, but still view him as better than a democratic alternative for other reasons, like Supreme Court appointments or a veto power, so they throw in in a cynical way.
Re:Stupid. Just use a pair of ear plugs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Voting doesn't do jack shit. We've tried that. It's time to move on to the next liberty box [wikipedia.org].
Re:Stupid. Just use a pair of ear plugs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we have a protests taking place all over the globe and which country is the one firing bullets and tear gas at their protestors? At what point exactly are your umpteen million firearms going to sweep in and save the day?
If you want a counterpoint, here in the UK a mass protest took the step of ripping down a statue of a slave trader and throwing it in the harbour. The police took the active decision to stand back and let them do it, recognising that it was not just a common act of rioting and prioritising the wellbeing of the people above a statue. That's how you do policing in a civilised country, and no guns required on either side.
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Now we have a protests taking place all over the globe and which country is the one firing bullets and tear gas at their protestors? At what point exactly are your umpteen million firearms going to sweep in and save the day?
The sort of people protesting are also the sort of people who are big gun control advocates. They don't own any firearms.
The sort of people who own firearms are the sort of people who don't care if the protesters are shot with "Brown note" bazookas. They are largely not at these protests, and therefore will not be using their firearms.
That's how you do policing in a civilised country, and no guns required on either side
The counterpoint to that is your civilized country can be manipulated by a small mob. I'm not so sure that's a great thing, but hey, you do you. Also, get back to us when your
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This is upvoted?
Your "civilized" country, notably Colston and Milligan, are actively responsible for the issues we face today.
Second, videos of Colston and Milligan statue removals are incredibly civil. There are not the looting and riots we see elsewhere, nor of massive groups of people simply not following basic instructions (all caused, btw, by the long term actions of the UK and slavetraders, as discussed above)
Finally, you don't think the people bragging about the guns just don't care that much about
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This is pretty hilarious. I've been on Slashdot as a routine user since 2001 and time and time again I've seen Americans bragging about how all the other countries in the world are screwed because we don't have all the guns to protect us from our government.
Now we have a protests taking place all over the globe and which country is the one firing bullets and tear gas at their protestors? At what point exactly are your umpteen million firearms going to sweep in and save the day?
So, it's not quite that simple. The sensible gun owners know that firing an actual-gun at a police officer during a protest is a very, very, VERY bad idea.
The absolute best case scenario is that any message that was being conveyed, and the thousands of people who came out to show support in a peaceful protest, all have their message completely ignored because YOUR protest is all over the news as being the one where shots were fired. Now, they don't have to listen to the message, and any positive outcomes ha
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From what I have been able to find out about this tech, earplugs help very little.
The best method to protect yourself is to disperse the incoming ultrasound, not to insulate yourself against it.
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You mean a gas mask?
Re:every tool (Score:5, Insightful)
while they use the least nasty ones
If intentionally causing permanent hearing loss to random people is one of "the least nasty tools" in US law enforcement arsenal, then I don't even want to know what's the next level is.
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Great Leader has previously spoken about this:
"When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength,"
So I guess.. tanks, driving over people?
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If intentionally causing permanent hearing loss to random people is one of "the least nasty tools" in US law enforcement arsenal, then I don't even want to know what's the next level is.
5.56x45
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You mad at protesters? Freedom of assembly bud. It's kind of a key part of the constitution.
What do you think about the Boston Tea Party damaging property and depriving honest British citizens of tea?
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Rights only exist when people agree to uphold and defend them. That's what we are seeing now, the people out in the street, upholding and defending the rights of all of us. The difference between Kent State and now is that now, everyone has a cell phone with a camera on it.
This obviously goes back way further than Kent State. Just look at all the labor organizers that were massacred back in the early part of the 20th century. But these protests are focused directly on the problem of authoritarian violence i
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Nineteen people dead due to the riots. Not due to the Police, but the rioting activity.